How to connect an SP530e

DarkXMen · April 3, 2024, 4:03pm

Hey
is it possible to connect a SP530e LED controller to Home Assistant?

lodge · April 21, 2024, 9:42am

Ditto, these are great controllers with an external remote control

travgiala · April 21, 2024, 3:01pm

Following as I have two that I am trying to connect.

OdorDecoder · May 13, 2024, 5:40pm

I’m also interested. I just received my SP530E (SP53XE series) and want to try it out.Have you looked into unicode LED aka Universal Light Controller? I have, so far it doesn’t find the SP530E on the network. See this link: Custom Component UniLED

abhinavkhandka · May 27, 2024, 4:50am

following the converation

MarceCastro · September 15, 2024, 9:53am

Hi! Any news? I’m planning on buying this one:

Thanks

peterxian · September 15, 2024, 5:46pm

The UniLED integration on HACS supports numerous BanlanX models, but SP530 is evidently not one of them according to a feature request from earlier this year.

You may still achieve HA integration using WLED if you feel comfortable flashing the device with custom firmware, as the SP530e is specifically named on the list of supported WLED controllers.

Jeff_Conley · October 30, 2024, 6:27pm

Using the WLED documentation I was able to get ESPHome installed on the SP530e. The serial programming pins should be labeled on the back of the board.

When configuring your ESPHome .yaml file use these settings:

esp32:
  board: airm2m_core_esp32c3
  flash_size: 4MB
  variant: ESP32C3
  framework:
    type: esp-idf

Using esp32-c3-devkitm-1 seemed to cause my device to go into a bootloop.

You will have to use esptool to upload the firmware the first time with the --encrypt flag set.
For example this is the command I used:
esptool -p /dev/ttyACM0 write_flash --encrypt 0x0 ./led-strip-1.factory.bin

After the first flash you can upload the code over Wi-Fi assuming you have already added your credentials.

My pinout seemed to be slightly different to the one listed in the WLED documentation.

Here is the pinout that I am using for the I/O:
GPIO19 = DATA (Addressable LED out)
GPIO8 = Button (This is listed as 3 in in the WLED documentation)
GPIO0 = Blue status LED (inverted)
GPIO1 = Green status LED (Inverted)

I haven’t tested the R/G/B/CW/WW pinout yet.

If you would like to use WLED you may have to compile your own version as GPIO19 is used for USB which is enabled by default.

sobrarbe · October 31, 2024, 6:17pm

Hello, I also have a sp530E and I don’t know how to put it in HA. According to what I read, you can change the firmware and put WLED on it, but would it do the same as if I put an esp32? I say this because I am testing with an esp32 and Wled and my Cob_CCT_IC strips do not work well because they flash and change color on their own and with this controller it works well, the only thing is that it cannot be integrated into Home Assistant.

Jeff_Conley · November 3, 2024, 3:34pm

When using the ESP32 are you using a voltage level shiftier between the ESP32 and the LED strips? Most LED strips work best with 5V logic.

As I mentioned above it looks like you have to compile a custom version of WLED for the sp530E since GPIO19 is used for USB which is enabled by default. You also have to use the --encrypt flag while uploading the code
Sources:

https://kno.wled.ge/basics/compatible-controllers/

MadnessASAP · November 26, 2024, 10:29pm

Thought I’d pop in here with my experience with the SP530e. I was able to flash ESPHome to it with @Jeff_Conley config and had no problems with the CC/CW outputs using ledc. The data pin however gave me a bit more trouble.

The LED strips I picked up use an SM16703 IC but the IC DIN has an internal weak-ish pull-up to 24V. This wasn’t a problem for the SP530e as it apparently has some protection on the data pin. However this protection also limited the drive current and it wasn’t able to overcome the pull-up.

So I put a 2N7000 between the data line and ground driven by the data pin and tweaked the ESPHome RMT module to invert the data pin. Then found out that the pull-up in the strip wasn’t strong enough to meet the timing requirements. A 3.3k extra 3.3k pull-up on the data line did the trick though and my lets are now happily blinking.

So if you’re having problems with the data line on these, take a moment to check if maybe it needs some help driving the line voltages.

For fun, have a glamour shot of the data line to the strip driving a 300ns 24v pulse. This is with the 2N7000 + bonus pull-up, still not pretty, but pretty enough apparently.

TimMayle · December 10, 2024, 6:22pm

Hello all,
I’m planning install BTF Lighting addressable RGB WW led strips (WS2814,or ideally 2805). It is a much more complex topic than I expected.
I’m struggling to find a proper controller that can be easily integrated into HA.
BTF has the SP539E controller, but it’s not compatible with UniLed.
The compatibility list on the flux_led (MagicHome) integration does not mention this controller neither.
I was not planning to go the DIY way, but it seems WLED is the only remaining way.

Do you guys have any suggestions ?

Tbanks a lot in advance.
Tim

HemiGuy · December 15, 2024, 7:18am

So who’s willing to do the firmware updates on two of my SP530e controllers so I can finally get these to work with HA? I’ll brick these things if I attempted this. I’ll pay ya if the priced fair. slight_smile: Does the new ESPHome firmware work without internet using local wifi and bluetooth as they did before the flash?

TimMayle · December 16, 2024, 10:27am

I follow up on my recent post.
I finally ended up ordering the digQuad controller from Quinled. It is pre-installed with Wled and very well supported.

felixfx2 · September 8, 2025, 4:48pm

Sharing

Managed to get SP530E to work in uniled
In HACS, install beta releases (I used v3.0.10 Beta 11). I am unaware of which beta added support. There is no explict mention but might be since Beta 1

Make sure you’ve already connected it to WiFi so autodiscovery can pick it up.

Master_Packets · September 23, 2025, 10:32pm

Hello Fellow HA LED enthusiasts! During the long dark dirty road of spotty, disjointed, and VERY confusing information I worked on converting my SP530E’s to WLED. It took about a week, but and have successfully converted all 5!

I documented and posted on GitHUB a very easy to understand step-by-step guide to convert SP530E to WLED Firmware!

I have modified the latest firmware from WLED to support the SP530E and plan to keep up with releasing SP530E version in step with WLED releases. Current SP530E build integrated WLED v0.15.1.

No More Artifact Hunting

Direct download links: builds/latest/WLED_SP530E_Full_Latest.bin
GitHub releases with proper binaries
No digging through CI artifacts

Professional Distribution

Automated builds on every commit
Proper version tagging
Ready-to-flash 1.6MB binaries with correct esptool commands

Transparent Development

Full source code visibility
Build process documentation
Community can contribute improvements

Complete Documentation

README.md with full setup instructions
SP530E_UPGRADE_CHECKLIST.md with your customizations
BUILD_OPTIMIZATION.md with build details

Links

Main Repository:

https://github.com/johnvoipguy/wled-sp530e-mods/

Direct Binary Downloads:

https://github.com/johnvoipguy/wled-sp530e-mods/releases/latest/

In addition I came across WLED Live View Proxy during my coding binge. This allowed access to the websocket for viewing the LED effects and colors in HA. Pretty Neat!

https://github.com/danishru/wled_liveviewproxy/